2015-2017

Karl Szekielda

Born in Berlin, Karl started his art education at fourteen at a farm island school in Berlin. He eventually became interested in the sciences and moved on to formal studies in chemical oceanography in Kiel and later in Aix-Marseille, France. After his doctorate, he left Europe for the United States with an award to work as a fellow under NASA. During his years of scientific research, his art work gradually transformed and the influence of science can be seen integrated in a number of his paintings and 3-dimensional montages. Art and science are connected. Earth structures and ocean features are extracted and transformed into captured elements, time and energy, and painted onto canvas. He defines color in objective terms, as specific spectral parts of light, and in subjective terms as something perceived and experienced by an individual.

Karl at Hunter College Department of Geography, the School of Arts and Sciences, continues to teach and conduct research in the interpretation of satellite data. For the last 25 years, Karl has his residence and studio in Hampton Bays, New York.​